First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“Anybody in particular? Friends, I mean?”

“Girlfriends,” he said. “Rhonda, Nancy, Emily, Donna.”

“So what’d they do?”

“Played cards. Shopped. Lots of golf. Lunch. Gossip. The things retired ladies do.”

“You never joined them?”

“On occasion I did. But it was more a girl’s thing.”

“Who was she going to see that night?”

Again, he took another long moment to answer. If she were a gambler, Michelle would’ve wagered her father was about to tell her a lie.

“Donna, at least I think. Dinner, I believe she said. I can’t be sure. Just said it in passing.”

“Donna have a last name?”

This time there was no long moment. “Why?” he shot back.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to know Donna’s last name?”

“Well, has anyone called her and told her that the reason Mom didn’t make it was because she was dead?”

“I don’t care for your tone, little girl.”

“Dad, I haven’t been a little girl for over twenty years.”

He put down his spoon. “I called her. Okay? It’s not that big of a town anyway. She’d already heard.”

“So it was Donna that Mom was going to see?”

For an instant he looked confused, unsure of himself. “What? Yes, I think it was.”

Michelle felt a wrenching pain in her chest. She rose, made a mindless excuse, and left the house. Outside, she phoned the only person she had ever allowed herself to really trust.

Sean King had just landed at Washington Dulles.

“I need you,” she said, after filling him in on what had happened.

Sean went in search of a flight to Nashville.

CHAPTER 32

YOU COULD’VE KILLED YOURSELF,” snapped Quarry as he sat across from Willa back in her “cell.”

“I’m a prisoner here and prisoners have to try and escape,” she said right back to him. “It’s their job. Like everybody knows that.”

Quarry drummed his long, thick fingers on the tabletop. He’d confiscated Willa’s lock-picking tools and removed all the canned food too. He’d also had Daryl and Carlos install additional security on the door.

“Who’s Diane?” Willa asked.

“A lady,” Quarry said gruffly.

“That I already know. Why is she here?”